A letter, a book and two paintings by Tracey Emin; right, Ruth Fairlight’s copy of The Colossus Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe were both in their twenties when they met in a bookshop in Nottingham.

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Do not speak ill of the dead: so runs a familiar injunction, often recalled when it is already too late, and ill has been spoken. And sometimes the dead themselves set a terrible example. Consider the

Simone De Beauvoir The Image of HerTranslated by Lauren Elkin208pp, Penguin Vintage Classics, £14.99 The first reviews of Simone De Beauvoir’s novel Les Belles images (1966) were dismissive. Some crit

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

David Farrier Nature’s Genius Evolution’s lessons for a changing planet 288pp. Canongate. £20. In David Farrier’s latest book, he warns us that humanity is endangering every facet of life on Earth thr